Brotherhood says not linked to armed group

On Thursday, a group of armed men, clad in black, appeared in a video and vowed to target policemen

The Muslim Brotherhood movement on Saturday said it was not linked to a recent video in which a group of masked armed men vow to target policemen.

“Organizations promoting violence are mere tricks made by security agencies,” the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails, said.

“The Brotherhood underline the fact that it has nothing to do with the violence it is accused of,” the movement added in a statement.

On Thursday, a group of armed men, clad in black, appeared in a video and vowed to target policemen.

The masked men, who flashed the four-fingered Rabaa sign, which commemorates hundreds of supporters of the ousted president killed in a bloody eastern Cairo sit-in dispersal last year, carried machine guns and said they would target policemen in the southern part of the Egyptian capital.

“We are fed up with the peacefulness of the Muslim Brotherhood,” one of the masked armed men said in the video. “We are not Muslim Brotherhood anyway,” the man added.

Anadolu Agency could not immediately obtain comments from the authorities. The authorities accuse, however, the Muslim Brotherhood of committing violence. They also designated the movement a “terrorist” movement late last year.

Even with this, the National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy, the main bloc backing Morsi, said in a statement on Friday that it rejects any form of violence or militancy.

Backers of the ousted president staged protests in different areas on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the bloody dispersal of two pro-Morsi sit-ins.

Hundreds of people were killed in the sit-ins’ dispersals, while thousands of others were injured.

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